Posted
by
Soulskill
on Monday September 19, 2011 @01:24PM
from the android-is-no-braveheart dept.

An anonymous reader points out an article by Richard Stallman in The Guardian which questions whether Android should be described as 'free' or 'open.' Quoting:
"Google has complied with the requirements of the GNU General Public License for Linux, but the Apache license on the rest of Android does not require source release. Google has said it will never publish the source code of Android 3.0 (aside from Linux), even though executables have been released to the public. Android 3.1 source code is also being withheld. Thus, Android 3, apart from Linux, is non-free software, pure and simple. ... Android is a major step towards an ethical, user-controlled, free-software portable phone, but there is a long way to go. Hackers are working on Replicant, but it's a big job to support a new phone model, and there remains the problem of the firmware. Even though the Android phones of today are considerably less bad than Apple or Windows smartphones, they cannot be said to respect your freedom."

Android is "free enough" for me. The API is open for programmers to use, and you can install what software you want. Most people don't care whether it's open source or not - just look at all the most popular OSes and devices out there. I'd prefer that they were still releasing the source, but as long as it works well and they don't try to force an Apple style walled garden, I don't mind.

You're right. Most people aren't ideologues and don't care whether something is open source or not, which is why the walled garden you dislike is so hugely successful compared to Android's approach, which seems to have only served as a platform for malware.

Angry Birds is only available as ad supported on Android. I would have bought it outright, but they didn't even give that options for some stupid reason. Considering it's probably the best selling app ever, that doesn't seem to bode well for an even comparison.

I rarely look at apps anyway. Beyond the obvious ones like Skype and the occasional use of a different browser (to spoof desktop mode since the built in browser doesn't seem to do it any more), I've only downloaded a few games. I bought about 3 of the

No, 65% of Android Market apps are free or ad supported, where only 36% of Apple app store apps are free or ad supported (source Distimo report April 2011). In absolute numbers there are more free apps on the Android Market than there are in the Apple app store.

I'm guessing that the majority of the apps sold, as opposed to installed, are games and that those games are worth the most money.

Mobile gamers seem to prefer iPhone to Android. They're probably right. There are probably more/better games. But is it a better platform than most Android phones? I think we may see a shift. Historically gamers have not preferred Apple.

Odd, as a consumer I don't see that as bad. In fact the higher the revenue in an App store the worse that market seems for me.

But maybe I am just to used to Linux on the desktop/laptop and the cheapness of just installing what I need for free.

I don't play simplistic games that were old fashioned on the commodore for just a few bucks (but if you count investment makes them more expensive then full price games) and the idea of having to pay a buck here and a buck there for trivial functionality that on a desk

Have you seen the fact that apple makes 2/3rds of all profits taken from.global smartphone sales? They couldn't care less about android's market share when the android phone makers are fighting for meager scraps.

Have you seen the fact that apple makes 2/3rds of all profits taken from.global smartphone sales? They couldn't care less about android's market share when the android phone makers are fighting for meager scraps.

I wouldn't characterize it this way at all. If you have 2/3 of the profits, you want 3/4. If you have 3/4, you want 4/5. And so on. I seriously doubt that Apple doesn't care about Android.

Not necessarily. Apple is generally content with the highest margin parts of the markets that it enters. If you have 10% of the sales, but 60% of the profit from a particular market, then getting 70% of the profit might mean that you'd need to double your market share, which can often be very difficult because it would involve diversifying your product line and diluting your brand. In this situation, it's often better to move into another market. This has been Apple's model for a little while, moving fr

If Apple had very thin margins it would simply cease to be Apple. It would stop doing R&D and the design work that you hate. However, you don't have to buy or even like Apple to enjoy the benefits of their R&D. Android's interface would likely never had seen the light of day without Apple's iPhone, or at the very least much later. Do you remember Symbian from the smartphone market leaders of 2006 ?

Why are you picking "sides" at all? Don't you realise how silly it makes you seem? Feel free to dislike Apple as a company, feel free to dislike how they price their products, and feel free to dislike their marketing... and go on living your life rather than picking the "side" that Google are on and having these petty, futile arguments. Believe me, Google are not on your side.

While I like google products, and I'm glad that it's free-er than the competition, I think they could go further. RMS is correct, however, the fault does not like exclusively with google - it also lies with many phone manufacturers, of which only a few have been sticking to GPL and other OS's straight up encourage proprietary (apple, microsoft).

Named after "greenwashing," the act of selling something as eco-friendly when it actually isn't, openwashing is the act of selling something as open when it actually isn't. Like those "open" phones that you can't get the source code for and run locked bootloaders so you can't even jai- uh, "root" the phone.

I'm not against open phones, I want open phones. That's why I don't want anyone to accept an openwashed substitute.

RMS might seem idealistic and harsh, he isn't very diplomatic, but he is right. We know that the NSA has no back doors in a GNU/Linux platform because we have the source for everything. Do you know that about Windows?

If Google doesn't release the source for Android 3.0, then you have to take what is in there on faith. Has it occurred to anyone to question why they are becoming secretive all of a sudden? Maybe because "do no evil" does not apply?

I have a nexus one, it's open, hardware and software, (I suspect that there are proprietary things in there, but it's as open as it gets FTW) I won't be moving to another phone any time soon.

RMS's version of free doesn't mean no cost, it refers to your freedom to do as you please with your software/hardware. You won't be able to do that with an Android 3+ device. FAIL.

no longer open? It was never completely open. It was simply "better than the competition". It's no less partially open than it ever was. I'm not happy about that, but who else will you go to? I notice the irony in you saying how it's a fail and uncool and all that, yet you have a nexus one.

This has zero to do with the do no evil part and everything to do with "you should be open sourcing everything, not a part".Bolds and trolling don't help.

We know that the NSA has no back doors in a GNU/Linux platform because we have the source for everything.

Including your hardware? Oh, and do you have a complete chain of trust on the compiler suite you use? (If you've ever used a compiler you didn't compile yourself, then you don't, as you can't be sure what that compiler did to the binaries it produced.)

I'm being slightly facetious, but even if you personally inspect every line of source code you use, you don't know for sure that your systems are clean, you just increase your confidence level that they are.

"If they really just wanted manufacturers to commit to timely updates then they could have GPL3'd critical components of the OS. That has anti-tivoization provisions, which means that users would be more likely to end up with phones running BSD or Windows7 or QNX or Symbian."

Then why does his software license prohibit charging for the software?

In theory it doesn't (it even says you can charge, both for the initial software, and for copying)... in practice, pretty much, because anyone else can distribute for whatever price they set, including zero.

"Yes, I didn't glean that. Google never releases the source until well after an update. Questionable, but at least they do release, I have recanted elsewhere."Not questionable at all since the code they don't release right away isn't under the GPL but instead under apache.If the Apache license is not free enough why no outcry from RMS on using Apache? Because that wouldn't get published.

"Oh and about Linux not having an NSA backdoor? How do you know? Have you checked every source file?

Because Android respects at least freedom 0 [gnu.org] with respect to user applications: "The freedom to run the program, for any purpose."

What does this mean? Phones running Android are less bad than phones running iOS or Windows Phone 7 for people who use applications distributed as free software because Android has the "Unknown sources" checkbox.* This lets the user obtain free applications from anywhere and hire anybody to improve them without having to seek the OS maker's permission to run them.

Of course, that same freedom does not apply to REMOVING applications. unless I root my phone, there are several applications pre-installed that I cannot remove, and nag me every few weeks to buy.. CityID, i'm looking at you, as well as my cell phone companies "Navigator" product, which is much less useful than Google Maps, which is also installed on the darn phone...

Regardless of where the 'beef' lies, and whose fault it is, non-removal apps should not be there. It removes freedom of choice and detracts from the user experience. You want me to buy your phone? Then don't mess it up by adding non-removable nagware and other such junk.

You keep talking about the GPL and restrictions, which simply is not the case.

While your point that RMS does not grant additional rights you feel he should, and in fact I do agree there, but as a matter of semantics you should at least properly word the effects the GPL has compared to the other option of ignoring the GPL (Which is a perfectly valid option too)

Isn't a developer free to license something however they want, within the constraints of the licenses of whatever is being used? If Google suddenly said they weren't ever publishing source again, I'd be pretty peeved, but they had reasonable, non-evil reasons for not releasing 3.x, and have committed to releasing Ice Cream Sandwich. I'd like to see 3.x released, but as long as it's a non-regular occurrence, it doesn't bother me any - but i'm not quite as idealistic as RDS - if that were possible.

You do not need "evil reasons" to keep your source closed. The fact that Google is not willing to release the source of the most current version of Android and only promise to do so with the next version shows only a lack of commitment to the open source aspect of Android. That may or may not be important, (hell loads of people are just fine with Windows and iPhone, not all of them are stupid).

However if I invested some real time developing Android (note: != developing for Android), that would make me thi

Of course it's not. Not only is it not free in the RMS sense of the world, withholding source [arstechnica.com] is not the openness Google always claimed it was promoting. Android exists solely to get people onto Google services for purposes of web advertising. The only reason it got so much support from techies is because it runs on Linux, and Google's PR department convinced them that it represented the usual unrealistic OSS fantasies about free ecosystems. Most users don't even care about such things. Apple is still the #1 smartphone vendor, and iOS the #1 mobile operating system counting iPads, iPhones, and iPods.

Remember, Google's main business is a closed, proprietary product--the search engine. Web traffic is regulated by a closed product run by an advertising megacorp. They are not some benevolent cheerleader of openness. They won't even implement Do Not Track [wired.com] in Chrome because it would interfere with their ad business.

I think the reason that Google isn't releasing Android 3 source is that they don't want it installed on every crappy phone and tablet coming out of China, and giving it a bad name. Android is already known by some for being a bad product, because so many people have a bad impression, because they bought an inferior device. Not releasing the source at all was all they could do to stop it from being put on sub-standard devices. I guess the other option is to just release the source code, but not allow "And

That or they can do what AbiWord and VirtualBox used to do: the Free versions were called "AbiWord Personal" and "VirtualBox OSE". The Free version of Android would thus be called "Android AOSP" (Android Open Source Project) and the approved version "Android OHA" (Open Handset Alliance). I've already been using these names to distinguish devices with Android Market from devices without, especially when talking about the lack of an Android-powered close substitute to the iPod touch [pineight.com].

I'm afraid that won't stop the problem Google is trying to address, which is cheap crap running "Android."

Users won't care about "Free" or "Approved" versions...if they even read far enough to notice. They'll see that the cheap crappy device they're looking at runs "Android" poorly, and therefore think "Android must be crap, so I'll get an iPhone/iPad instead."

Just curious what exactly Google did to you, and why you perceive Google to be more evil then say Apple? Your always posting dozens of comments on any Google/Android article and if it wasn't for your low UID I'd write you off as another troll account. Judging by the time you invest in this on Slashdot I think you have a very personal or financial stake in this and just curious which it is.

Do you hate Google because they're not as open as you'd like (yet still more open then Apple), or do you hate Google b

Hm, sadly the only source I can find atm is the statistics release by Millenial's ad network. Would have sworn there were articles about this earlier, but for the life of me I can't find them now. Oh well, i concede it for now:)

The whole reason for android being closed source now is that there were five different versions of android that are/were incompatible with each other. This way google can rein in the errant OEM modifications that led to these incompatibilities.

Huh? Since Motoblur, Sense, and Touchwiz are all just shells on top of the base Android OS and can all run the same applications (with small exceptions) I'm not sure what you are getting at? The biggest fragmentation comes from the fact that Google handed over the responsibility of updating the OS to the vendors and the telcos who would rather sell you another phone and/or have you renew your contract than make your existing device work better and so there are 4 major versions in common use with significant

I imagine Google foresaw a future those small exceptions became large exceptions. Android is already rapidly showing signs of fragmenting into a disparate platform full of products that sort-of work, all of which have minor annoyances (but you can fix them with cyanogen! Provided you don't mind voiding the warranty on that phone you're stuck with for 18 months, working or otherwise!); I could easily see it becoming an absolute nightmare.

You don't really get to submit to Android like you do other open source software programs. There is a NIH (not invented here) attitude.
It is "open sauce". Add your favorite sauce on top of it after it is done, but that is truly about it,.

As far as I know, this isn't true.What they said was that they were going to skip releasing the source to Honeycomb (3.0) and release the next version when it's ready.

Due to the nature of the source control system (in Android's case that'd be Git, I guess) the release will come with the complete commit history attached, so you can recreate Honeycomb if you wish.They did say that they weren't sure if the Honeycomb releases would be properly tagged, though.

I would not bet on the git history including everything needed for 3.0. There could be legal reasons why they can't release 3.0 not just embarrasing coding mistakes. A few proprietary packages may have been used to hack Android into an OS for tablets. From a version tree standpoint you can think of it as a dead branch. Some stuff will be commited up to the root for Ice Cream Sandwitch but some stuff we will likely never see.

If Google is going to go against their own definition of 'open', and their supposed commitment to release the source code, that's their choice. But don't spin it, don't apologize for them, don't defend them. It's especially galling on a site where a large chunk of the subscribers crucify Apple and anybody who even remotely expresses a like for Apple's method of doing things.

I'm not apologising for anyone. I just stated a fact -- it will be released, although not in a timely manner.It's not a detail either. It may be important in order to build custom ROMs for devices which might not be able to run the next version for some reason.

You are the one attaching opinion to my words which I purposely left out. If you care so much, here is my opinion: I think it's bullshit that they are dragging their feet in this.I used to think th

Android is double-licensed: the Linux kernel is GPLv2 and the rest is Apache v2.The kernel for 3.0 has been published in accordance to the license. I'd give you a link to it, but kernel.org is still down.

The rest, which is really the most interesting part is what they're holding back, and they're allowed to by the Apache license.

This confusion is precisely why the FSF complained about using the term "Linux" to refer to the OS when it is only the kernel. You need lots of user space code to complete the OS (and in fact the kernel is a small part of your OS).

Linux is the kernel. It specifically allows you to run any code you want in user space on top of it. Usually Linux ships with GNU user space tools along with X windows and your desktop environment and whatever else you want. Where the OS stops being the OS and starts being jus

I'm very surprised The Guardian published this article as-is.
A non-geek won't have a clue what most of the article means! Maybe it shows how far removed from reality RMS really is.
A layman's not going to know what a binary blob or a firmware is, and they aren't explained.
Very strange for mainstream news in my opinion.

I swear I'm not trying to troll here. The argument that OSS is "innovative" has another strike against it as we see the reinvention of computing with mobile devices. Everyone who's pushing the state of the art ahead is working in private industry. Nothing groundbreaking has come from the open source world even though computing has been turned upside down in the last couple of years. The theorists would say that this is the perfect time to break old paradigms, but every open-source effort is pretty much

Okay, yes, as many people seem to be parroting in the comments, most people don't care whether or not their software is free (as in freedom) and open source. However, I don't really see how that's an argument for proprietary software or the behavior of companies like Apple, Microsoft, and yes, Google. (And the statement is indeed being used to make such an argument.)

Most people don't care about much at all. They seem to care when, for example, a televised address from the President prevents them from watch

Caring is a product of risk. Risk is, by definition, a probability and a cost. In the case of open vs. closed software on my phone, the cost of the worst problems associated open software are approximately equal (open source malware on Android can steal my information just as easily as Google can). The probability that I'll experience any problem at all is HUGELY greater on open software (incompatibilities, slowdowns, and most commonly unintuitive, obtuse configuration).

Android for mobile phones is still completedly free and open sourced. If you want the source, get the Gingerbread 2.3.4 source code, which is the latest version of Android for mobile phones. Honeycomb is NOT a mobile phone OS, therefore it's not valid to say that Android is not open-sourced for mobile phones.

Android for tablets is currently not open-sourced. I have access to the Honeycomb source code and it's not hard to see why - Google has pretty much hacked in tablet support and it looks like a rush job

Even if you weren't missing the point, this wouldn't really be accurate. Even on mobile phones, there are chunks of Android that have never been free. If you want a (relatively) cheap way to see exactly what I mean, get a Nook Color and throw CM7 on there without installing the non-free components (which include Marketplace, YouTube, and the infrastructure for Google accounts). There's a bunch of stuff just missing. (The same stuff is also missing on the Nook Color's stock OS, which again, is running a

Personally I feel like an idiot for falling for the PR hype and supporting Android. Now I find it was all a lie and I still don't have a secure phone. Lied to, used and cheated. You could say Apple are closed but are are at least straightforward about it.

That said, we did get contributions back to linux didn't we? No, we didn't get much of that either.

I get more and more in agreement with RMS as time goes on. You got to be hard with people and companies, it's the only thing they understand. It's getting better but for the meantime, extremism is what people seem to want.

I don't want to sound angry with Google, rather I am embarrassed of myself for falling for it. Perhaps more could have been done at inception. Perhaps there's more we can do now, somehow...

> so it's kind of a big deal when one of the founders of the> movement calls them out.

Not really.

RMS has called out damn near everyone with anything to do with free/open source software. I think it's almost at the point now where most projects/organizations should take it as a badge of honour when they've gotten large and important enough that RMS considers it a problem if they aren't 100% compliant with his concept of freedom.

If it's news to you, you must be hiding under a rock, or at least not paying attention at all to Android.

To summarize the situation:Google has been temporarily withholding the 3.x source for two reasons:1) They needed time to work on their anti-fragmentation strategy after the rampant Tivoization and poison-pilling that many of the manufacturers (especially) practiced with 1.x and 2.x - This may have been a side aspect to their purchase of Motorola, since Moto was the worst of the major Android handset man

The world, aside from the ranks of the rabid Stallmanites, only cares whether it's open, not whether it meets Stallman's ethical standards.

That's only true if you define "world" to be people who want it open.

If you want to define the "world" as every potential user of Android, the vast majority DON'T CARE if it's open. They care that it works, that's all.

People who rigidly cling to the notion that any software which hasn't been provided in a ideologically pure enough way is a Great Evil... well, those people are as rabid and narrow minded as any other fanatic.

It's sad you got a Troll mod for pointing out that not everyone cares what RMS has to say. Because, an awful lot of us tuned him out years ago. Sure, he's a smart guy who has been an advocate for free software... but his completely inflexible view that all software must live up to his notion, well, I just can't agree with him.

To me, he's that crazy guy on the corner with a "The End is Nigh" sign. Most of the times when I hear what he has to say, I disagree with him and then tune him out.

Problem is most people don't think enough about things, and by the time they start caring too late.

Like people who think you're a nut for not liking region locks on media, right until the point where they move to another country, and find that their collection doesn't work on local players, and they can't play movies they buy from their home country.

It's sad you got a Troll mod for pointing out that not everyone cares what RMS has to say. Because, an awful lot of us tuned him out years ago. Sure, he's a sma

Disagreement is fine, calling people "rabid Stallmanites" is insulting and gets a troll mod from me automatically. If you seriously want to make that point you can make it a bit more politely.

It's sometimes difficult to not think like then when you're confronted with someone who has a rigid, ideological position, whose starting point in all discussions is that they're right and you're wrong, and there is no room for any give.

RMS and some people who agree with him are sufficiently fixed in their ideology that it's hard not to end up saying "rabid Stallmanites".

You might as well try to convince someone their religion is wrong as try to convince RMS that not all software needs to be open. He and others are pretty inflexible on this position.

Imagine say, Martin Luther King being flexible in his position. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character... when the authorities feel like it".

There's just no point to that, because it changes nothing. If Stallman wasn't inflexible he wouldn't be effectively saying anything, and you wouldn't have heard of him (and probably what re

He is one of the founders of the Open source movement. Just because he called on your beloved company google for their pissing on Open source and its philosophy doesn't mean some of the techies do not care.
May be as others have noted, main stream people may not care. Being in the tech world I guess if you belive in OSS you ought to care.

That's the point. Linus chose GPLv2 almost by accident without deep consideration - hence thanks to Stallman. Linus has indicated (according to the gossip chains) that he might not have chosen GPL if he were choosing today.

Thus RMS putting GPLv2 into Linus hands gave us a system around which freedom zealots can assemble. (As we don't have hurd). BSD doesn't attract zealots and so makes less progress.

People are clearly demonstrating they can't be trusted to keep it off the phone (I also imagine there was a little bit of pressure from tablet makers wanting to establish a market before the knock-offs could drop the price point).

Can't be trusted to use an OS how they wanted to? Do you not see how such restrictions and artificial headstarts are against the spirit of openness that Google claimed Android represented?

Definitely PalmOS. Still use the thing (treo 650), as I have 100% control over it. Plus, the parts are nearly free, and the battery life is measured in days... Finally, its built like a tank. I actually tried to break on at one point, and was only successful at breaking the screen and dislodging the battery connector. 20 minutes later I had it working again.

I wouldn't say Android is a move away from openness but if it's a move towards greater openness at all, it's a very tiny one.

In practice an Android phone with a locked bootloader (and running a closed-source Android version) is as closed as an iPhone. How is that a significant step towards greater openness? Because the kernel is a distant relative of the Linux kernel? Big deal, some Windows versions used a BSD network stack and nobody was cheering.

Naivete... Apple and MS have both come under fire over user privacy issues. here's a major difference. On my ACA droid build, I have this nice app, it's called LBE Security Service. Thankfully, monitors every app that tries to access any type of information and do something with it. While giving me complete control over what is allowed to look at my data, what data it is trying to see and what it can do with it IF I allow it to see it. On WinMo 7, I have yet to find an application that comes even close.

Yeah right... the use of GNU/Linux is an ideological term for RMS, no way he's going to stop doing that. He'll stick to the term just like he sticks to the ideal of everything running free (in the RMS/GNU sense) software and users reprogramming their software.

According to their ideas, though, GNU/Linux is the name for the full OS such as most distros. Linux is the name for the kernel. Android doesn't use all GNU components that Linux distros typically do. It doesn't support glibc and probably makes little,

I see it as follows: RMS views anything that's not GPLv3 as being "bad" to some extent, including the Apache License used by much of Android, or the BSD license used in much of iOS. Even the Linux Kernel's use of the GPLv2 license has seen criticism by RMS.

The fact the Apache and BSD license permits closed software (such as Honeycomb and iOS) based on "open" software makes it at least somewhat evil - the return of code to the community isn't required.